Four fatwas shown to jury

BOISE — Four fatwas offering religious justification for suicide attacks were shown to jurors in the Sami Al-Hussayen trial on Thursday, over strenuous objections from the defense.

The religious treatises, each by a different Islamic cleric, were posted in the spring of 2001 on a Web site liked to Al-Hussayen, who faces charges of providing material support to terrorists. Attorneys on both sides of the case have described the four fatwas as the “core of the case,” with prosecutors contending they show Al-Hussayen meant to help terrorists, and the defense saying they show the whole case is about free speech and religion.

The four documents vary from one by Sheikh Salman Al-Awdah that takes a relatively mild stance, to one by scholar Suliman Al-Alwan that describes Jews as “the brothers of monkeys and pigs.”

Al-Awdah’s fatwa states, “The operations must be against infidels who declared war against the Muslims. … Being an infidel is no reason to kill.”

But he, like the three other clerics, concludes that Islamic law justifies suicide attacks against Jews in Israel and against Russians in Chechnya.

Federal prosecutor David Deitch argued that by passing along the four documents to an Islamic Web site he helped maintain, Al-Hussayen showed his true intent.

“Your honor, these are hateful words in these fatwas, talking about killing people,” Deitch said. “It would be natural … if the defendant did not agree with these statements, for him to do something to demonstrate that he didn’t agree. But what does he do? He passes it along to millions of people.”

Lead defense attorney David Nevin said Al-Hussayen doesn’t agree with the statements, but even if he did, that wouldn’t be a crime. The question of the use of suicide—which is forbidden by the Quran—as a tool of war is a major topic of political and religious debate in the Middle East, he said.

“I guarantee you, if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were being played out in northern Arizona, it would be on our minds all the time,” Nevin told the court. “In the Middle East, it’s on their minds all the time, it’s discussed in the press.”

He added, “They (the prosecutors) want to argue, ‘You can’t do this, you can’t say this.’ It’s an assault on the First Amendment, that’s exactly what it is.”

Deitch disagreed, saying the government only has to show that Al-Hussayen either knew or intended that his activities would help terrorists recruit or raise funds. Because the Saudi student and computer whiz helped operate a network of Web sites for various Islamic groups, Deitch said, “He knew and he intended that these four fatwas would be published on that network … What significance is there to that point? Well, the significance is the fatwas themselves.”

He highlighted some of the fatwas’ most shocking sections, including this from Al-Alwan: “I see when Muslims fail in their fight against the Jews, and fail to destroy them and expel them from the holy land, that the best treatment and effective medicine to treat the brothers of monkeys and pigs is to perform martyrdom operations … planting fear in the hearts of those infidels, causing them harm in their bodies and losses of their fortunes.”

Deitch said, “The reason why I read these to the court is not to inflame the court.” He said instead, it’s to show that Al-Hussayen had to know the effect of the material he was helping disseminate on the Internet.

“The net effect of that ideology is recruitment and fundraising,” Deitch said.

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge agreed to allow jurors to see the fatwas, but only under the same limitations as earlier inflammatory evidence: They’re to consider them only for what they show about Al-Hussayen’s knowledge or intent, not for whether or not they’re true.

Deitch said, “We are not trying to prove that a person who straps on an explosives belt and dies for Allah will go to Paradise.”

The judge said, “These exhibits are no doubt prejudicial.” But, he said, “In my judgment the court would … err to deny their admission.”

Jurors will have to decide how meaningful they are, he said.

Anti-terrorism activist and author Rita Katz then was called back to the witness stand to read portions of the four fatwas to the jury. After that, the testimony bogged down, as prosecutors sought to have Katz trace links between various Web sites for the jury.

Defense attorneys objected repeatedly, noting that Katz was not qualified as an expert witness. A paid consultant for the prosecution who assisted in their investigation and examined computer records, Katz is not a computer expert, and was presented as only a fact witness, meaning she can testify only about what she saw.